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by Godel_unicode 2611 days ago
So you're saying they caught the attackers using one of the most sophisticated pieces of malware ever created. Good, we agree.
2 comments

No more “So you're saying...” please. It's never true.
They caught the malware not the attackers. Otherwise we would be talking about the authors.
Given that the malware was seriously breaking shit, it wasn't all that hard to catch. I'm sure that at first they were looking for bugs, and thgen it became clear that it was too intentional.
I thought it was pretty well-established that Stuxnet was created/authored by TAO within the NSA.
Thats the belief but was it truly ever confirmed? I dont doubt it it sounds like a meme worthy of belief and I lean towards it but I dont recall ever finding a confirmation. Also saying they were caught implies the law caught them and arrested them.
It appears a US military general was pardoned by Obama for leaking details and US/Israeli involvement in it.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/17/obamas-general-pleads-g...

As far as I know Stuxnet didn't break any US/Isreal laws. Of course it broke Iranian laws, though.

I think Obama said "no comment" to reporters, but then basically admits it by talking about how he regrets that this information got out into the public.

Stuxnet didn't violate Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ?
Well it was not deployed in the USA anyway... It would be whatever equivalent law in Iran?
What would you consider as a confirmation? Without someone coming out and saying "we're the ones who did it", it's very unlikely that it'll be ever be confirmed.

The best you can do is to make some educated guesses (by looking at the timestamps, coding patterns, comments in the code, who might be interested in hacking the target, political connotation to the attacks etc.). That's usually how state-sponsored attacks get attributed.

For example, "Guccifer" used GTM+3 settings and attacked DNC a few hours after Trump publicly "hoped" that Russians will find the emails. That doesn't confirm that it was sponsored by Russia, but it makes it an educated guess.